This is an update for this post about the Texas Guaranteed Tuition Plan, wherein the board of said plan decided to screw over all plan participants by negating our contract with them & changing all the tenets of the plan that caused us to agree to it in the first place.
Ahem. So we wrote our state congresspeople and got a nice response from our Rep Patricia Harless, and a condescending form letter explaining what the TGTP is from our Sen Dan Patrick.
My husband wrote back to Senator Patrick and said, “why are you writing back to explain the plan to me? I know what the plan is; I’ve been a member for 8 years. Maybe you should read my original letter!” Well, he was his usual charming and political self, but that was the gist of it.
Senator Patrick apparently got lots of letters like this, because he got on the stick and wrote his OWN letter to the state comptroller complaining about the tuition board.
So now Ms. Harless and Mr. Patrick are in a tie for Who Tried to Do Something About This. We’ll continue to wait and see if the problem gets fixed.
I guess they have by November 30. That’s the deadline for cancelling our contract. Apparently the comptroller was able to change that date all by herself, so it is the comptroller – Susan Combs - who is responsible for this. Good to know. She is an elected official, and she is currently working on getting re-elected. She is also not looking personally at any inquiries regarding changes to the tuition plan, according to her site. Even though she oversees it. Does this mean there aren’t enough angry plan holders to prevent her from being re-elected?
Just for interest’s sake I logged in to see what our estimated refund would be. Her account is currently worth less than we have paid into it. So now matter what we do, we will LOSE money on this deal.
HOW INTERESTING. I wonder who’s running against her?
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Unfortunately, I’m not sure there’s a solution to this one. The fund is essentially bankrupt, as I understand it.
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I can’t figure out why they didn’t see this coming. In the three years before we had Dolly and signed up for this, we were at Texas A&M. The tuition DOUBLED every year. One year they gave word it was going to quadruple in ONE year – and we freaked out until we found out we were going to be grandfathered in at the older rate (they didn’t want to lose 20,000 upper classmen who couldn’t afford to stay).
They kept the fund open for five years after that started happening.
I think they didn’t manage it properly and now they’re f*****. Also, I think they’re trying to force people out, thus the ridiculous changes. I am ready to jump ship, but hubby wants to ride it out for a little while and see what they do.
I think it’s a question of one hand not seeing what the other hand was doing. They dereg tuition, and don’t think about how it’s going to affect the FUND?
Sheezsh. Politicians.
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Hmmm. See, I wasn’t paying attention way back when. I was just a dumb college student. Knowing tuition was deregulated explains a lot about what I saw going on in college.
I agree with Wendy about them trying to drain the plan of potential beneficiaries. If they have to pay off each contract they are in a big mess, but if they can get people to voluntarily opt out, the math will improve for those who stay. (Or they can just keep changing it using the same old logic until the math works or everyone abandons it.)
Either way it seems like for the short term, leaving the fund is just as painful as staying in.
The state legislature passed a law that basically said the state of Texas would back this fund (it has been closed for years, as far as I know) for current participants. So the argument that the fund is broke is a stupid one.